On bus tour, Buono makes personal plea to urban voters

It was a busy day for state Sen. Barbara Buono, shown above with state Sen. Nia Gill and U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone. She was in six cities in North Jersey today making personal appeals to voters in her bid to become governor.Sal Rizzo/The Star-Ledger

NEWARK — State Sen. Barbara Buono made a personal pitch to hundreds of voters on the streets of urban New Jersey today, hoping to build a critical mass of support in Democratic strongholds where Gov. Chris Christie fared poorly last time.

The whirlwind day of retail politics took Buono, the likely Democratic nominee for governor this year, from a Little League game in Newark to nail salons in Irvington to the most famous hot dog stands in Elizabeth.

Between handshakes and photo-ops, Buono highlighted what she called Christie’s troubling record: vetoing a minimum-wage increase, slashing a tax break for the working poor and failing to drive unemployment below 9 percent.

Christie, she said, had focused too much on rebuilding after Hurricane Sandy, while the cities have been suffering for years under his economic policies.

"There’s a whole other New Jersey that needs to be rebuilt," Buono told a crowd in Irvington, vowing to reverse many of the Republican governor’s moves.

The state senator from Middlesex County also waded into Newark politics, campaigning with city council members Mildred Crump and Ras Baraka and promising to return the management of Newark schools to local officials after more than a decade of state control.

Buono’s tour featured a dozen other Democratic officials, including Rep. Frank Pallone (D-6th Dist.), who trailed her at every stop. He called Christie an "absentee governor" and scoffed at recent polls giving him a more than 30-point lead.

"Do not believe these polls," Pallone told one crowd. "Polls don’t vote, and we’re six months away from the election."

Christie’s campaign shot back at Buono’s criticisms today, saying she "continues to run a divisive campaign built exclusively on negative and misleading attacks."

On a bus loaned to her campaign for the day, by "Bus for Progress," a New Jersey nonprofit of progressive activists, Buono, 59, hit Elizabeth, Irvington, Montclair, Newark and Plainfield, gabbing with hundreds of Spanish-speakers and minority voters as her staff and supporters buzzed around her.

"I either run five miles or I do this," Buono said, relaxing between stops on the campaign bus. "I can’t do both."